I floated in a murky void, a palpable darkness surrounded me. I had no clue where I was, whether or not I was dead or alive, but honestly did not care. A sense of tranquillity, of total peace pervaded throughout me. I knew it was wrong, that I should have been saddened over the prospect, but the thought of never seeing my daughter, Melanie, never feeling the suns warmth again, did not bother me in the least. I had completely lost all concept of time and it felt as if an eternity and no time at all had passed since I had been floating in the endless void. In total silence I floated, save for an ever so faint sound like that of distant rushing water. Events of my life played through my thoughts vivid and cinemal like. Currently they were on a loop of my daughter Katherine.

Still a young girl at 10, but so bright for her age. Shoulder length frizzy brown hair, glasses just a bit too large for her face framing golden brown eyes. I was smiling as I mentally pictured her mischevious smirk she would get every time she was trying to play a prank, or hide something from me. She had never been a skillful liar, which to me was a good thing because it just meant she hardly ever tried hiding anything serious from me. Her laugh, a bubbly giggle that was always infectious to me. So intelligent for her age, she was already taking certain high school level courses. Her penchant for athletics, she played basketball with girls at the 13-15 age level and was able to dribble circles around them.

"Fisaecul" a faint voice, barely audible, broke my thoughts.

"Hello?" I called out, my voice echoed through the murky void, surprisingly in fact considering I had barely spoken aloud. Come to thing of it, it was the first time I had even said anything since I had been in here, wherever here was... I strained to hear a response for minutes, or hours? I didn't know for how long. Slowly, my thoughts returned inward and the inner movie of my life began anew.This time around I was focused on Melanie. I thought of the first time we had met, my first day as an event co-ordinator. Sitting as she came into my office, a stunning smile on her face, I was of course speechless, but that was fine as she did all the talking. Introductions, briefing me on the different tasks being worked on, and the like. The long nights we spent together working, slowly falling for each other. It was really no surprise we did given that we spent a vast majority of our time together. Of course, that i found Melanie entirely intoxicating and gorgeous helped that along at least for myself. The first time we kissed, it was late at night, we were looking over the floorplans for an upcoming carnival and she had leaned against me to point at something and ask me a question that I still dont remember. I had been entirely too distracted at the time. I remembered she had said something, probably the same question she had just asked, and when I could barely utter a response beyond unintelligle stammering, she turned her head to look at me. The coy smile she had as she turned to face me, still maintaining contact, staring right into my eyes, it really felt as if she were looking right into my soul. Slowly bringing her face close to mine until our lips were almost touching and finally, after pausing like that for a split moment, kissing.

"Fisaecul Audite" my thoughts were interrupted by the unknown voice again, this time clearly audible.

"Who's there!" i yelled out, my voice echoing, seemingly impossibly louder in its echoes than when i first spoke. I winced as my ears rang, and for the first time in the void, I felt pain,

"yes," I heard a different voice hiss, "succumb to the pain. Let it pervade your being and know that pain, loneliness, sadness, will be all you have to hold onto as you float in my domain Fisaecul, it will be all you eventually have to remember that you were once alive." The feeling of tranquility slipped away and I was gripped with fear, fear that this void wasn't as pleasant and peaceful as I thought originally. "You fear this void and so you should Fisaecul, your soul is in the realm of darkness and so it shall remain for eternity," the hissing voice continued to speak, "you are already dead, just succumb and be done with it Fisaecul. Fighting is-"

"Silentium!" The first voice I had heard floating in the void boomed, and I was gusted by an intense wind and heat, a heat that made me feel as if my blood were going to boil. The murky void was instantaneously filled with an intense light that blinded me, stinging my eyes, and the voice echoed so loudly that my ears rang far worse than before, to where it felt as if they would start bleeding. I stayed unable to hear, unable to see, and unable to feel anything but heat and wind for what felt like eons. I surely felt that I was going to die, if I wasn't already dead, if this kept up any longer. Suddenly, it all stopped, well except for my eyes still being blinded and ears still ringing. I was met with a new sensation though, the sensation of falling. Not rapidly falling, no some force seemed to be slowing my fall. My eyes eventually stopped burning, my ear eventually stopped ringing and thats when I noticed that I wasn't in a void of darkness anymore. No, I was falling towards a field, green pastures of tall grass now visible. The speed of my fall intensified and I began hurtling towards the ground, I flailed about out of fear, sure that this would now be the end. Closer and closer the field came until with a thud I landed in the tall grass and strangely, it did not hurt at all. I lay face down in shock for a considerable time, trying to comprehend what had just happened, though i'm not sure why. So much had happened that was incomprehensible in such a short amount of time that I ought to honestly stop trying to make sense of it myself. The scent of grass filled my nostrils, there was a slight breeze blowing across the field, and I could feel warmth like that of the warmth from sitting outside in the sun on a hot summers day. I finally rolled over onto my back and was greeted by the sight of a man standing over me, smiling as he looked at me.

"Salutem Fisaecul" he spoke, and of course I did not understand it at all. I continued staring at the man. He looked quite tall, and his medium brown skin seemed to glow on its own. His hair a mottled white and grey, his beard a jet black. He was dressed in robes that impossibly seemed to be every color of the spectrum at once, or was it every color one at a time and the color changed periodically? I honestly didn't know because it was impossible for some reason to discern which was the case,

"I uh," I started to speak, "dont know what you're saying. Do you speak English?"

The man chuckled, "of course I do, I speak every language. You hear what I want you to hear, the question you should be asking is, did you just speak English?" I furrowed my brow and shook my head,

"of course I am, its the only language I speak." The man before me chuckled and turned around, surveying the field. I sat up and looked as well. To be perfectly honest, if I didn't know any better, and I really didnt so it very well might have been the case, we easily could have been in a field somewhere on Earth, Iowa, Nebraska, perhaps... Kansas? "Where are we?" I asked him.

"Reality is an illusion created due to a lack of alcohol"
-Airmax1227

"You were the moon all this time, and he was always there to make you shine."

He stood, his back turned to me, silent for a long while. I began to wonder if he had even heard me ask the question when he spoke, "we are nowhere and somewhere Fisaecul. The best way I can describe it is we are in a, prison of my own devices, of sorts. Neither alive, neither dead, we just... are." I didnt get it,

"uhhh, that doesnt make any sense," I said to him, "how can we be nowhere and somewhere at the same time?" he chuckled yet again, and I was starting to get the impression that my questions and confusion were very entertaining to him. As if I was not getting something obvious, or at least, should be obvious if I just looked at it in the right way.

"You're right, you know, this is quite entertaining." He answered my thoughts, as if he could read my mind, "and yes, I can hear your thoughts Fisaecul. Perhaps maybe, you should be wondering if you are even speaking at all, or if I simply want you to believe you are. You are still so naive, and that is fine. I've always been endeared by your kinds naivete, your foolishness. So confident in what you think is the truth, but so far from the truth you haven't even begun to sniff it! Its quite wonderful."

I sat there, confused for a long while. Neither one of us spoke. I studied the surrounding, and noted a solitary tree not too far away. Oak, beautiful and tall. There was an obvious strength and vitality it. The suns, make that three suns, i know very shocking, basked the field in warmth and light. One of the suns was white, the other grey, and the other, paradoxically black, yet still bright and warm. "Who are you?" I finally asked him. He turned to face me,

"I am you of course," he answered with a smile, "and yet I am not you, as you are yourself, and I am myself, and if we were the same, would I not look like you?" I was honestly starting to get frustrated, this man and his circular vague talk was rediculous.

He laughed even harder, "you already should know! After all, if you are here with me, then that means you already hold within you the knowledge to answer that yourself Fisaecul." Now I was really starting to get angry, I could feel my face start to heat up, and knew it was turning red with frustration,

"Why do you keep calling me Fisaecul? My name is Shawn, what the heck does Fisaecul even mean?"

"Fisaecul is your name child," he stopped laughing, but a grin stayed plastered on his face, "you are the ender of ages, with you comes great upheaval and change, that is why you are Fisaecul, or Finis Aecula." I still hadn't a clue of what he was talking about, but I calmed down a little bit, at least he had finally given me a straightforward answer.

"Ok, so what age is coming to an end then? And how am I supposed to bring the end of it?" He began bellowing with laughter again, my confusion on the subject extremely entertaining to him, tears were streaming down his face and he collapsed onto the ground rolling around in the grass.

"You, ahaha, if I told you it would ruin all the fun of discovering it yourself despite you already knowing," he choked out the response through his laughter, "n-now wouldnt it?" He kept laughing uproariously. I had honestly had enough,

"you know what man?" i snapped, "i'm done with you, can't get a straight answer on anything. Have fun with yourself." I started to storm off but his response stopped me in my tracks,

"if you wish to get out of this place, I suggest you listen child, as I hold the key to escaping this... prison." I turned on him,

"well then spit it out already! Heck, you could very well be lying for all I know. You honestly seem like you've lost your mind. For all i know, I could be dead, and now i'm going to be stuck with your vague nonsensical arse for the rest of eternity!" He stopped laughing, but continued to grin while looking at me. I stood opposite him about 10 feet away from him, breathing heavily from my outburst of anger. Opposite each other we stood for a long period of time. My anger didn't dissapate, his grin remained. The suns were simultaneously setting in the sky and shadows and darkness began overtaking the picturesque pasture, "Well?" I demanded, "are you going to tell me or not damn it?"

"Of course I wont," he said, and my anger increased ten fold, "but that doesnt mean I can't get you out of here without you knowing how we did got out."

"We? What the hell do you mean, we?" I spit at him, "what exactly are you planning on doing?"

"I already told you, I wont tell you, but that, again, doesn't mean I wont get you, and of course I out of here Fisaecul. I grow weary of this place, and it is honestly high time I return to the three primary planes of existence. From what I have seen while here, it appears things haven't improved since I was last around. So of course, it will be time to do a little... housekeeping if you will." He stood up and walked over to the tree placing a hand on it. Its green leaves withered, its branches changed from strong and sturdy, a healthy deep brown, to gnarled and pitted, a lifeless gray. I took a few steps backwards, who the hell was this guy? I was starting to think that maybe I couldnt trust him when he spoke aloud, hand still on the tree, "of course you dont now, but the question you should be asking yourself is, do you have any other choice but to? I certainly dont see anyone else around here thats offering a way out. In fact, there is nobody else here but you and I. Just saying Fisaecul, if you want out of here I would suggest you allow me to do what must be done. The first part as you can see, is sapping this tree of its life. Well, i'm truly just taking back what I gave it eons ago. Think about it as one of those amusing savings accounts you humans use in your financial matters."

"Look buddy, I'm really starting to think I shouldn't even help you," and in my head I was mulling over this possibliity seriously. What if he had lied about making this place himself? What if he had been placed here by someone or something and I was the only key he had to unlock his cell?

"What if, what if, what if," the man muttered to himself, "what if I'm a figment of your imagination? What if you are still floating in the void, and creating this as a means to cope with the torment of being all alone? What if you have lost your mind, what if" he turned around and stared at me, a prismatic glint in his eyes, "you are already dead and there is actually no escape from here?" The triple suns had completely set by then, the field shrouded in near darkness save for a multicolored moon hanging overhead basking the field in a rainbowish hue. The man reached up and broke off a now lifeless branch from the tree. It snapped off easily as if he were merely tearing a piece of paper from a notebook. He brought in the branch close to him, holding a hand over it, "Ignis" he spoke. The branch burst into a bright and dazzling flame that lit up the surrounding vicinity. He tossed the flaming branch towards me and instinctively i reached out and grabbed it gracefully. How in the hell did I do that? I thought to myself. The flame warmed me, its heat semmingly passing through the branch and into every fiber of my being, an exquisitely pleasant feeling.

While I had been distracted by catching the flaming branch, he had broken off another one and now held a torch in his hand. "The flames will last throughout the night. We will be departing this plane at the rising of the three suns."

"How exactly are we going to do that?" I asked

"Reality is an illusion created due to a lack of alcohol"
-Airmax1227

"You were the moon all this time, and he was always there to make you shine."

He sighed wearily, obviously my repetitive questioning was starting to bore him, "I already told you, I'm not going to tell you child. Just know come sunrise next morning, we shall be back on the plane of existence your mortal body now rests, Neutralia. Of course, I wont be there, my soul shall return to my mortal body, if it even exists. If it doesnt, well, we'll as you mortals say, 'cross that bridge when we come to it.'"

"Hold on, no no no," I objected, "what is going to happen if you dont have a body to return to? You aren't going to like, take over my body are you?"

"No," the man looked at me and smiled, I got the distinct impression that he wasn't being entirely truthful, but just truthful enough to where it couldn't be said he was lying. More vagueness and obtuseness from a man that had been exactly that this whole time. I at this point, even though our interactions had been brief, should have realized that was the kind of response I was going to recieve. I shouldn't of been surprised or aggravated at that point given that, but I nonetheless was. "You ought to control those emotions Fisaecul, you are going to need to be calm when we depart or your soul will remain stuck here. And unlike me, you will never have the ability or knowledge required to escape from here."

I stared at him, knowing what he was saying was true, but not wanting to admit it. Indecision gripped me, I honestly didn't know what to decide, "I... dont know, I need to think about it."

He laughed again, "well, take as much time as you need child! We have all of eternity for you to finally decide after all!" He sat down on the ground and slammed the branch into the ground which implanted it deep enough in to stand up on its own. He then closed his eyes, "for now, you should sleep as I will be. We will need our strength for" his eyes popped back open again, "oh speaking of strength," he snapped his fingers and a loaf of bread popped into existence from nothing in front of me, landing on the ground, "you should eat." He reclosed his eyes and immediately started snoring. A loud, annoying, and abrasive snore that frustrated me even moreso then any of his purposeful vagueness up to that point.

I picked up the bread and ripped off a chunk. Putting it into my mouth I then realized truly how hungry I actually was for the first time. The bread was sweet, a strong taste of honey infused with it. Soft and doughy, it was absolutely delicious. I devoured it quickly and with my stomach full my eyes grew heavy. I did the same thing with my branch as the strange man had done with his and laid down on the ground, the grass creating a soft bed. I closed my eyes and fell asleep.

_____________________________________

"Wake up Fisaecul! It is almost time to depart!" I was awoke by the strange man standing above me once more. I yawned and stretched and sat up.

"So tell me, what is it that you need to do again?" I asked him sleepily

His eyes glinted mischieviously, "no no child, you are going to have to do better than that if you wish to get that information from me. Now, up boy, we have little time left and I am excited to be out of here. I've been waiting for this for quite some time." I continued looking at him, but did not move. I was still undecided but being honest, swaying towards helping him. Still, that he was being so vague told me he was hiding something from me that I should probably know.

"No," I said, "first you are going to tell me exactly how we are going to get out of here."

He huffed and crossed his arms, "very well you are going to cut your hand, the incantation requires the blood of a monarch. I'm going to do the proper incantation, and then we will be on our way. You will be returned to your body, I will be returned to mine. It really is as simple as that."

I glared at him, "why exactly is my blood necessary?"

"Because you are a mortal with the soul of an immortal of course! I mean really Fisaecul, I've already told you that you have this knowledge within you, you only need to think of it. But of course, you mortals have never been the greatest thinkers." He chuckled after finishing. I still say seated, I could tell that the suns were about to rise, as a glow was beginning to emanate from the horizon, "stand up and cut ur hand with this," he said as he snapped his fingers, a small dagger appearing in his hands, "like i said, be quick, we have only a short time now."

I grabbed the dagger, still unsure of this, but having decided that an eternity with this bastard of a man would be a worse fate than the worst possibility if he was let out. I cut my hand, wincing as I did so and blood began to leak from the cut. "Here," he said, "give me your hand." I held out my hand and he took it within his. He took two of his fingers and dipped them in the blood that had started to pool in my palm. He then used my blood to draw some sort of symbol on my face. He dipped his fingers again, and did, presumably, the same to his own. It was then that I noticed that the symbol was the same as the one on my chest. The three triangles within the larger one.

"Hey," i said, "thats the same symbol as,"

"yes," he interrupted me, "the same symbol you have on your chest. I am quite aware of that. Now be quiet while I do this." He grabbed my other hand, both our hands clasped as we stood facing each other not even a foot apart. I heard him begin to chant, "sanguinem regis exitus carcere. Ligabus in nobis viam nostram, per vitutem creatoris et nos in fugem. Redire ad esse plana."

I began to feel extremely light, and the light of the suns broke the horizon. I yelled out in pain as it felt as if every fiber of my being were being torn asunder. "Do not worry Fisaecul," the man shouted, "this is just a part of the process. You must dematerialize to cross from this plane to the three primary planes. Do not let go!" The pain grew more intense and I llooked down at my feet to seem them start to dissapate into a grey dust. We both floated now above the ground, our bodies dissapating slowly. My vision began to darken as the pain took ahold of me, "do not worry, let it take you!" the man shouted again. Just before I passed out, I felt the sensation of immense speed and heard the man laugh and yell, "see you on the other side Fisaecul!".

Darkness enveloped me yet again

"Reality is an illusion created due to a lack of alcohol"
-Airmax1227

"You were the moon all this time, and he was always there to make you shine."